What is the best jury duty excuse you've used or heard?

Jul 10, 2011 12:41 PM

I have the wonderful opportunity to serve my community by reporting for Jury Duty. I have heard various stories of excuses people used to NOT be considered for a case. What have you heard or used...maybe I can draw from them :)

I sat through a painfully long session to seat a jury and the best way to squirm out of your civic duty is to claim you don't like police. Keep in mind if the judge feels you are using a lame excuse just to avoid jury duty they can charge you with contempt of court.

I answered, honestly (and in private, with just the judge, and both lawyers, able to hear me), that I felt the police were arresting too many people, and not shooting enough of them.

It was a case of assault and attempted armed robbery, where the two witnesses for the prosecution were the intended victim, and the arresting officer, who arrived in time to prevent the robbery, no witnesses for the defense, other than the perpetrator, and I am happy to state that the trial was half a day, he was found guilty (duh), and sent away for life (hooray for the 3 strikes law).

One lawyer looked at the judge and said I believe we can excuse this juror. The other lawyer agreed, and that was that.

I'd recommend strongly not voicing opinions like this other than in private, since you can (and should) be held in contempt of court.

[Footnote: I have been happy to serve on other juries. It was just that one I objected to.]

@magic cave: I don't necessarily want to "skip out", it just happens to be that my experience so far has been pretty meh. One was to sit for 3 days hearing a trial, then the judge dismissed us because the prosecution admitted they were lying in order to get money from the defendant. Another time was to go through lengthy jury selection process while 8 months pregnant, and I indicated early on that it was not advised by my dr to sit so long to avoid blood clot problems that I was being monitored for, which I had a dr note, they didn't care.

I find it fascinating to hear the stories. I'll probably post some that I hear, if they are interesting enough.

Of course we all have busy lives, and I'll be spending more in child care and gas than what I'd earn in jury duty pay. So part of me doesn't want to serve, but the other part of me is truly intrigued by the process and cases.

If I reveal where I have to go, a majority of you might encourage me to skip out.

@mellielou: Back in the early 80's my sister was on a jury hearing a sexual assault case in which a young former Marine was charged with raping a young woman he'd met on the beach. She invited him to her family's beach-front home for a soft drink, and the end result was brutal and ugly. The initial round of juror votes was to acquit him, since (as two elderly jurors insisted) she invited him inside. My sister objected strenuously, noting that the defendant and the victim both knew the girl's family was expected home momentarily, that the girl's friends has testified she didn't even date yet, and that the man had beaten her quite viciously. Another juror then mentioned that his own son was a Marine, and they were heavily trained in assault tactics. Eventually the jury found the guy guilty.

(cont'd) The judge, however, thought he should get a second chance and sentenced him to a halfway-house facility. He walked away from there a month later, headed up north, and was later convicted of raping two other women and, if I recall correctly, killing one of them. The judge ended up being the first female justice on the Florida State Supreme Court.

Ever since that case, I have done my best to help competent, intelligent people understand how very important it is that they serve when called for jury duty.

My question to you was worded poorly, and I apologize for any insult I might have given. I'm just always curious why so many people try so hard to avoid jury duty, which to me is the foundation of our judicial system.

I said "No, sir. I have absolutely no problem with shooting an armed intruder who breaks into my home. Center of mass. Double tap."
And I look like such a nice girl too. I wasn't trying to get excused, but was trying to let the prosecution know I was on their side. In small town Florida, most people don't like it when someone breaks into their homes and will open fire without a problem.

@magic cave: Are you referring to Barkett? She was a nun in a former life. Kind of wonder if that altered her impractical outlook on thieves and murderers. I don't believe in legislating from the bench.

I have been called once. It so happened that the time they wanted me, I had other plans already. In the county where I live, if you are called you get one free pass where you can delay your duty up to some number of months, so I asked to serve two months later which was granted.

Two months later I showed up and went through the jury selection process. They passed on me, having filled the pool before they reached a point where they needed to decide to accept or reject me. That was day one. Day two I just needed to call and see if they needed me, and I was told the answer was no, they thanked me and said I was done for this round. I did not need to call or appear again for that round of jury duty.

I think the case was something about a guy with existing warrants, pulled over for a routine stop, and had contraband on him (perhaps as parole violation). Not very exciting, and I never heard how it went. It only took two days for me to be excused.

@lavikinga: I'm with you on this one. My default mode is to assume anyone in my home without an invitation plans to do me harm, and I fully expect to beat him to the draw. It might be genetic: a treasured family story is my mother, due to deliver my sister within the week, drawing down on a salesman with his foot in the doorway. He blustered that she wouldn't dare shoot. "Wanna bet?" sez she.

I'm a bleeding heart, do-gooder, card-carrying liberal with a fairly wide streak of pragmatism thrown into the mix. I still have her little Beretta, along with a couple of more useful weapons.

@lavikinga: I was indeed referring to Rosemary Barkett. The case to which I referred was very early in her time on the circuit court bench, and I'd like to think that her sentencing decision was part of her learning curve. (Damned tough way to learn, though, especially for the bstrd's subsequent victims.) I've been in concurrence with many or most of her decisions since then, but to this day my sister spits on the ground at the mention of Barkett's name.

Have been called to serve many times but only impaneled once... Civil case claimants lawyer decided my training and occupation would work against his case and used one of his get rid of a juror free cards...

Woot.com is operated by Woot Services LLC.
Products on Woot.com are sold by Woot, Inc., other than items on Wine.Woot which are sold by the seller specified on the product detail page.
Product narratives are for entertainment purposes and frequently employ
literary point of view;
the narratives do not express Woot's editorial opinion.
Aside from literary abuse, your use of this site also subjects you to Woot's
terms of use
and
privacy policy.
Woot may designate a user comment as a Quality Post, but that doesn't mean we agree with or guarantee anything said or linked to in that post.

Not a farewell, just a forced redirect.

It's true, Local.Woot is no longer, but please don't despair.

Never-ending savings are still to be found on Deals.Woot each and every day, so come on in. Don't think of it as a time for tears. Think of it as a way to bring us all closer together under one roof.

Sorry

This is only for people who have bought woots

We restrict voting to users who have purchased something from one of the other Woot stores. It's not just because we want your money (which we do) - it's the best way to be sure all the votes are coming from real people and not spam-bots or phony accounts. The best way we can think of, anyway. For now.

You can always get voting rights by buying something from one of Woot's other sites:

Purchases through Deals.Woot don't count, because in that case you're not buying anything from us. And we don't have your account information for those purchases.

If you think you've bought something from Woot before and still can't vote, make sure you're logged in with the same account you used to buy from us.

Geez, why so negative?

You have to vote up more before you can vote down.

Don't get us wrong. Negativity has its place. And downvotes are just as essential as upvotes when it comes to making Deals.Woot a useful place to find deals.

But when your votes lean so heavily toward the dark side, we have to wonder. Go vote up a few things. Accentuate the positive for a little while. It'll do you some good, and it'll do the site some good, too. Then you can get back to dealing out the smackdowns, OK?

Too late, we all heard you!

Hmm... you're wanting to take your vote back?

Well, that's a bit tricky. See, we do a lot of stuff with your vote, using it to work out the popularity of what you voted for, compare that to all the other things voted on, tally up our leaderboard, work out your reputation. Someday we'll do a little cartoon showing just how hard your vote is working.

Anyway, taking votes back messes all that up, so we give you five minutes, in case you just mis-clicked. After that we've got to say no take-backs. Luckily, votes are free, so feel free to throw them around left and right wherever you see fit.